May 16, 2011 | BLUE DOGS CHASE JOBS ON K STREET: Having been systematically targeted by congressional Republicans during the 2010 election cycle, some conservative Blue Dog Democrats appear to have found a silver lining to their exile from Capitol Hill.

November 2, 2010 | In districts currently represented by a Blue Dog, nearly one-in-five of the Democratic candidates have been out-raised, have been out-spent or ended the last reporting period with less cash on hand than their Republican opponents, a Center for Responsive Politics review of campaign finance records shows.

October 29, 2010 | Rep. Gene Taylor (D-Miss.) collected $11,500 from fellow Democrats during his 2008 congressional bid, and he's collected $10,500 from Democratic leadership PACs and candidate committees since January 2009, according to an analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics.

August 6, 2010 | PMA GROUP CHARGED IN ETHICS PROBE: Revolving door ex-lobbyist Paul Magliocchetti, once one of Washington's most powerful lobbyists and founder of the PMA Group, a defense lobbying firm. On Thursday, Magliochetti, a former aide on the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, stood accused by federal prosecutors of overseeing one of the largest campaign frauds in U.S. history.

February 24, 2010 | Whether it was health care reform, cap and trade climate proposals or financial regulatory reform, Blue Dog Democrats were often at the center of Congress' top legislative fights. This caucus of 54 moderate and conservative House Democrats was also at the center of political fund-raising in 2009, the Center for Responsive Politics has found.

December 3, 2009 | Rep. John Tanner (D-Tenn.) makes the second member of the moderate Blue Dog Coalition in the last two weeks to announce that he'll be retiring at the end of his term, leaving the Blue Dogs to find new members of their pack.

November 17, 2009 | Like the health care reform debate, financial regulation legislation has divided members of the same party, opening a rift between liberal and moderate Democrats. But unlike the health care reform debate, where the moderate Blue Dog Democrats have been rabid in their opposition to a public insurance option, a different group has emerged to voice moderates' concerns over financial regulation -- but both are magnets for cash from the financial sector.

October 16, 2009 | An initial Center for Responsive Politics analysis has found that sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives raised $48.2 million from July 1 through Sept. 30, 2009, based on the 336 reports we have in. The mean amount these lawmakers raised was $143,640, and the median amount was $126,680.

August 20, 2009 | The 52 fiscally conservative House Democrats known as the Blue Dogs and playing prominent roles in the nation's health care reform debate continue to collect campaign funds from health insurers at a greater rate than their non-Blue Dog counterparts, tCRP has found.

July 9, 2009 | Over the past three weeks, Capital Eye has contacted members of five Capitol Hill committees responsible for drafting health care reform legislation this summer. Here are their responses (and non-responses) and the money they're collecting from various industries.

June 25, 2009 | There's a particular breed of lawmaker on Capitol Hill that is pushing hard against a public health care plan, much to the delight of two seriously moneyed special interest groups-insurers and pharmaceuticals. They're the Blue Dogs: moderate, vocal and funded in part by the industries trying to protect their bottom line.

June 25, 2009 | Here's a cool tool that brings together data from various parts of OpenSecrets.org to show how much money each current lawmaker has raised from various health-related industries and the health sector overall since 1989 (including President Obama's haul).

February 18, 2009 | As the story behind the embattled investment company Stanford Financial Group develops, we thought we'd take an even closer look at the seeds the company may have tried to plant in Washington via campaign contributions. When looking at ALL lawmakers to collect money from the company's PAC and employees (not just members of the current Congress), some additional, important names appear at the top of the recipient list.

February 17, 2009 | Money manager Robert Allen Stanford now has two things in common with embattled investment manager Bernard Madoff: both have come under scrutiny for allegedly defrauding their investors, and both have given significant funds to politicians. Between its PAC and its employees, Stanford Financial Group has given $2.4 million to federal candidates, parties and committees since 2000.

February 12, 2009 | The close ties between Rep. John Murtha and a Washington lobbying firm raided by the FBI have put the powerful Pennsylvania Democrat under greater scrutiny. The lobbyists at PMA Group have been Murtha's fifth most generous campaign donor over time, but he is just one of 284 members of the 111th Congress who have collected money from the firm, which specializes in securing federal earmarks for its clients. In total, PMA Group's employees and its political action committee have given current members of Congress $3.4 million since 1989.

October 28, 2008 | There may be no place like home but that's not where members of the House of Representatives have turned to raise enough cash to win their re-election races. According to a new study from MAPLight.org based on the Center for Responsive Politics's campaign contribution data, between 2005 and 2007, 97 percent of members of the House raised more than half of their funds from donors living outside of their districts.

October 1, 2008 | More than a quarter of the money raised by congressional candidates on the November ballot has come from business and labor PACs, not from individual donors, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Capital Eye has profiled some races where labor union and business PAC money is playing the largest role.

September 23, 2008 | The last time Congress seriously debated how to regulate the financial industry, the result was legislation that allowed the nation's largest banks to get even larger and take risks that had been prohibited since the Great Depression. A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.

September 12, 2008 | Uncle Sam bailed out Freddie Mac and the company's twin sister, Fannie Mae, this week, and the next in line in the Wall Street family to get a helping hand might just be Lehman Brothers. Executives at the struggling investment bank are looking to sell the company with assistance from the government--and fast--as its stock plunges. Although the government isn't expected to completely bail out Lehman Brothers, the fourth-largest U.S. investment bank, the company has built a strong financial relationship with politicians over the years and coincidentally ranks fourth in the largest contributors in the race for the White House.

September 11, 2008 | When the federal government announced two months ago that it would be seizing mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, CRP looked at how much money members of Congress had collected since 1989 from the companies. On Sunday the government proceeded with the takeover and we've returned to our data to bring you the updates, this time providing a list of all 354 lawmakers who have gotten money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (in July we posted the top 25).

September 10, 2008 | Now that the federal government has bailed out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac from their impending financial doom, Congress has an even greater interest in seeing the giant mortgage buyers succeed-some lawmakers perhaps more than others. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, 28 lawmakers had between $598,100 and $1.7 million of their own money invested in the two companies last year.

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